


Drunken Conversations

by st_mick



Series: Niffler [45]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Torchwood
Genre: Doesn't keep Jack from thinking about it though, Grief/Mourning, He's in complete denial, Ianto's still figuring out his sexuality, Jack doesn't like the conclusions Ianto has drawn, Pub Crawl, Too soon to think on this anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-21 12:33:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21074966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_mick/pseuds/st_mick
Summary: Ianto recovers from the injuries he sustained in the fight on the beach, and Jack begins training him to fight.  As November comes to a close, the men from Hogwarts have the opportunity to have a pub crawl through Cardiff.  A little bar fight, a lot of tequila, and awkward questions (Ron's specialty) make for an interesting evening.





	Drunken Conversations

Ianto felt much better when he woke, on Monday morning. Toshiko and Gwen were aghast at his bruises (his face was more bruised than not, due to the contusions caused by the broken nose, orbital, and jaw), but he was able to honestly say that it looked worse than it felt.

Jack took them all on a callout, and on the way back to the hub Gwen noticed that there was a hole in the containment bag she had used to store the alien artifact that they had found. She went into the console and pulled out a new bag. “What’s this?” she asked, puzzled at the bright pink splashes of color, not realizing what they were.

“That’s mine,” Ianto reached out, but before he could take the bag, Gwen had pulled it out of his reach. He was sitting on the back seat, behind Jack. Tosh was in the middle, and Owen behind Gwen, who had called shotgun.

“Oh, no self-respecting Welshman is going to own anything _that_ color,” she chuckled.

“Gwen,” Jack said, his voice holding a note of warning.

Naturally, she didn’t notice.

“I can’t tell what’s in there,” she said, placing the artifact on the floor between her feet so she’d have both hands to open the bag.

“Gwen, give me the bag,” Ianto said, becoming unusually agitated. He couldn’t explain why, but he did _not_ want her touching the booties. 

“Hold on,” she fussed, tearing the bag open.

In the next moment, Ianto leaned over Tosh and reached between the seats, grabbing the bag out of Gwen’s hands.

“Bloody hell, Ianto!” she exclaimed. “What is your problem?”

“He told you it was his, and to give it back,” Jack said, feeling exactly as though he was scolding a disobedient child.

Ianto quietly apologized to Tosh for having practically shoved her into Owen’s lap. He was holding the bag to his chest as though he thought someone would try to take it from him. He’d gone pale from the pain caused by the sudden movement, but he had saved them. He stared at his knees, fighting to control the emotions that were threatening to rise.

“It’s all right, Ianto,” Tosh said quietly. She could tell from his expression that if she touched him, or even looked too closely at him in that moment, he would break. She did not want to be responsible for that, knowing that he wished to keep his grief private. She looked away, turning towards Owen. “Although I am curious to know what that was in your pocket, Owen.”

Jack, understanding her motivation, barked a laugh at her uncharacteristically racy joke as Gwen squealed with glee. Owen caught her wink and rose to the bait, expanding on the distraction by telling her he had a very large pistol in his pocket.

By the time they got back to the hub, Ianto had composed himself. He gave Tosh’s hand a grateful squeeze before they got out of the SUV. He put the booties in his car before returning to the hub.

***

As the weeks passed by, Jack saw that Ianto was allowing himself to be more visible in the hub. He wasn’t necessarily any more talkative, but he was no longer a shadow. He also began participating more in cases, though it took Owen almost three weeks after the fight to clear him for more than light duty. Jack began training him that same day.

In truth, the fight on the beach had scared Jack, for many reasons. Ianto could have been seriously injured, or even killed. Jack was still baffled how the younger man hadn’t had more (and more serious) injuries, but he was thankful. He’d had serious reservations about taking Ianto home that night, but his instinct had told him it would be safe to trust Ianto to say if he needed Owen’s assistance.

He’d been right, and of course Ianto had been covered in both Jack’s and his own blood, so it was very likely that he’d looked worse than he actually was. In fact, he had looked significantly better after his shower.

Jack had been relieved that Ianto hadn’t just taken the beating, without fighting back. But he suspected the only reason for that was because Ianto was protecting him. He still cursed himself for dropping his guard. He’d been so focused on Ianto and his own past that he hadn’t even seen the blow coming. He only knew the nature of the attack because Ianto had explained it to him.

He was horrified. Such things were supposed to stop happening in this century, and it couldn’t happen quickly enough, for Jack. He’d had his fill of homophobia and hate crimes, having endured far too much of it since his arrival in the late nineteenth century. He was worried how it might affect Ianto, though the younger man seemed to have brushed it off.

And wasn’t that strange? Was Ianto really so inured to horrific experiences, that he simply took being attacked in his stride? He certainly didn’t seem cut up about it, though in honesty it was likely the least of the bad things that had happened to the Welshman in recent months. But Jack was concerned about how these things tended to pile up on a person.

And what of being thought of as gay? Did that bother Ianto, he wondered? He still had no idea where Ianto stood, with respect to possible same-sex attractions, but he knew that this sort of attack could very well scare a curious man off. In fairness, he suspected Ianto would be too stubborn to let that happen, though. 

The broader question was whether Ianto felt the sparks that flew between them, whenever they touched. Jack had not experienced that kind of chemistry with another human, before. It was exhilarating, but he could not tell if Ianto felt any of it. Sometimes it seemed so, but if the younger man was having any sort of reaction to it, he was damned good at hiding it.

No surprise, there.

But it didn’t matter, because Jack knew he needed to wait. Ianto was a wreck, and jumping into bed with Jack would be a disaster waiting to happen, particularly when the Doctor showed up. Jack had no intention of starting something with Ianto unless or until the younger man was capable of having something casual that would end (abruptly) when the Doctor arrived.

It didn’t keep Jack’s curiosity at bay, though. Which was why, when Ianto had some of his school friends over the last weekend in November, Jack was very interested to hear what the camera in Ianto’s living room picked up, when the topic arose.

Ianto seemed to have some instinct for when he was being watched, so Jack never viewed the live feed, anymore. He set the camera on a five minute delay, and watched it almost-live, when he was concerned. He knew he could not keep the camera up very much longer, but he was still worried about the Welshman.

Now that he was getting to know Ianto, he sensed something, some… potential instability, just beneath the surface of that perfect façade. It frightened Jack, because he knew that Ianto’s suicidal tendencies had not simply evaporated. Sure, he’d made a promise to his friends, but his grief was still so raw, and his despair had not yet abated. Jack felt safest keeping the camera up, at least until the holidays had passed.

***

Susan was getting married in a few weeks’ time, and so the female cohort of the DA was having a hen night. Which had left Neville, Harry, Ron, George, Seamus, and Ernie at loose ends. Ianto invited them to Cardiff, and they began the evening at the Green Dragon, Cardiff’s wizarding watering hole, where most of them arrived by floo powder. 

They lost Ernie and Seamus early on, as they had pulled a pair of dark haired witches while fetching drinks. George put his foot in it as the two wandered off. “Just us old married blokes now, eh?” Ron kicked him, and he almost swallowed his tongue when he realized what he’d said.

He looked apologetically at Ianto, who waved him off with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “No worries, George.” He stared at the bar, then gave in. “My round, I think,” he said, walking to the bar. He downed two firewhiskys before heading back to the table with a tray of drinks.

When he confessed that he detested firewhisky, they decided to go to a muggle club and dance, and then pub crawl their way back to Ianto’s. Ianto didn’t particularly feel like dancing, but he allowed the sensation of the thumping music to help him feel… something. He mostly drank and watched the others dance, or at least make an amusing attempt.

At one point he was approached by a beautiful girl with mocha skin and dark, glittering eyes that made his chest hurt. She asked him if he wanted to dance, but he claimed he had a sprained ankle. The girl’s boyfriend then accosted him for ‘making moves’ on his girl. He invited the bloke to take it outside, and it became a seven-against-five fight in the car park, to the wizards’ disadvantage.

Ianto had only been training with Jack for a few weeks, but he was a quick study. He knocked the boyfriend on his arse before the rest of the fight started. What ensued was an old fashioned drunken bar fight, with each man pairing up against another. Ianto took on the two spare idiots, and once they were out he proceeded to take down any of the others that looked to be gaining an upper hand against one of his friends.

Soon enough the idiots were on the run, scampering back to the safety of the club, and the fight was over far sooner than Ianto would have expected. He was barely winded, though his knuckles were sore. He’d forgotten what Jack had said about his hands when he threw the first punch, but remembered, quickly enough. 

He looked up at the others, who were staring at him. “What?”

“Blimey, Nif,” Harry chuckled. “You said Jack was teaching you to fight, but… Merlin!”

Ianto frowned, not certain what Harry was talking about. “Not the first fight we’ve gotten into,” he pointed out.

“No, but you were a bit...”

“Aggressive?” Ron suggested.

“Don’t be daft,” Ianto said. “We were outnumbered. Are you saying I should’ve held back?”

“I’m not,” George grinned, dabbing gingerly at a split lip.

“And I don’t feel quite so beat up, as I normally do,” Neville admitted.

Ianto flexed his hand. It had felt good, fighting. Letting his anger loose, once more. He found the realization troubling. The anger was disconcerting, though it was familiar. He had been angrier than this, once. Through most of his teen years, in fact. Becoming an Auror had helped. But meeting Lisa had banished the anger, and it had been gone long enough that its return was jarring.

“I haven’t been angry like this, in a long time,” he admitted quietly.

“Experiencing anger as a part of grieving and healing isn’t the same as being an inherently angry person,” Neville reminded.

“Too many big words – killing my buzz,” Ron complained.

George flung an arm over Ianto’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, Nif. Listen to Neville. And tell your boss that he’s a damned good teacher.”

The next hours were passed as promised. Ianto had asked Owen for a list of good pubs, and the cranky doctor had come through. They slowly made their way towards Ianto’s flat, ending the evening at his local.

None of the other wizards had tried tequila before, so they ended up with their own bottle and a table full of lime rinds and five very drunk friends stumbled their way back to Ianto’s. Ianto raided his cupboard for a bottle of whisky and collapsed onto his sofa as the others hauled blankets and pillows from the spare bedroom closet. They all kept a ready supply for impromptu DA ‘meetings’.

“Bloody hell,” Ianto slurred. “Haven’t been this drunk…” he screwed up his face, thinking, then gave it up as a lost cause before waxing philosophical. “You know, I’ve spent my life doing everything I can to be _anything_ other than _him_. And now, here I am. Drunk off my arse with skinned knuckles and feeling resentful about missing ma…”

“Hey Nif,” Harry interrupted him. He had offered to switch to soda during the last hour of their pub crawl, to prevent anything stupid from being said in front of the Torchwood camera. “How much longer are they going to watch you?”

“Pfff,” Ianto was easily derailed from his previous line of thought. “No idea. _I_ know I’m not trustworthy. Maybe Jack realizes it too, after all.”

“That’s not fair,” Neville protested. ‘Your team really does care.”

“Didn’t say they don’t. I said I’m not to be trusted.” He took a pull on the whisky bottle and passed it to Neville, who had sat on his pile of blankets and had only managed to pull off one shoe. “Too right, too.”

“Don’t believe it,” George said, shaking his head and grabbing the bottle from Neville, who began struggling with the other shoe. Ianto drew breath to argue, but George spoke over him, “No, no. I’m talking, now. I have,” he held up the bottle and took a drink, “the talking bottle. Means you have to listen to me.”

Ianto raised an eyebrow.

“You gotta stop beating yourself up, Nif. Your loyalties aren’t divided anymore, are they? No. So why wouldn’t you be the trustworthy, loyal man we all know you are?”

Ianto overbalanced reaching for the bottle and fell off of the sofa. When they all stopped laughing, he grabbed the bottle and drank, then frowned. “Forgot what I was going to say,” he muttered.

Ron grabbed the bottle. “Well I want to know why you got in that fight the other week.”

Ianto huffed. He had told them about the ceremony, and about the fight. “May I speak without the bottle?” he asked, giving George an ironic look. When George grinned, Ianto said, “I thought I told you everything.”

“You did,” Ron nodded, handing George the bottle. “But why did they think you two were up to… stuff?”

Ianto lay back into the sofa cushions. “I was leaning against Jack. Head on his shoulder. Too tired to hold myself up. The ceremony, it was beautiful. But it… It made me face a lot of my grief, and it was exhausting. I guess from a distance, it looked like some romantic interlude, or something.”

“Was it?” Ron asked bluntly.

“I was weeping over my dead child,” Ianto gritted, finding that anger still floating so close to the surface. “No, it wasn’t about romance.”

“No, I get that,” Ron said quickly. “But you talk about flirting with him. With Jack. Are you… are you interested in men, Ianto?”

“Jesus, Ron,” Harry muttered.

“Well, he didn’t exactly chase the girls in school, did he?” Ron defended.

“No, but he and Addie got caught making out more than you and Lavender, and that’s saying something,” Harry laughed at the memory.

“Yeah, Won-Won,” George simpered in falsetto, fluttering his eyelashes coquettishly. 

Neville just watched Ianto. He had sensed a conflict in his friend. One that hadn’t subsided, so he suspected it was something Ianto was still trying to figure out.

“I’m not like you guys,” Ianto shrugged. “You see the body, then in whatever order after that, the mind, the heart and the spirit. I’ve never…” He ran a hand over his face and held out his hand for the bottle. George took another swallow and handed it over.

Ianto took a long drink. “I see the aura, first. The spirit.”

“Really?” Harry leaned forward. “You’ve never mentioned that, before. That’s how it is for Luna too, isn’t it?”

“Moon-bug,” Ianto smiled. “She sees… gods and goddesses, what _doesn’t_ she see?”

“’splains why she’s so odd,” Ron slurred.

“Yeah, well. She’s odd, I’m _mad_. Who else can we call names?”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Ron grumbled.

Ianto handed him the bottle to show no hard feelings. 

“So you see the spirit first,” Harry prompted.

Ianto nodded. “Then either the mind or the heart. The body’s last.”

“But you’ve always liked girls,” Ron blurted.

Ianto sighed. “The spirits I’ve fallen for inhabited female bodies. There’s a difference.”

“So you think you might like blokes, too?”

“I would have loved Lisa, whether she was in that body, or in a man’s,” Ianto snapped. “For fuck’s sake, Ron. I still loved her, encased in metal, because her mind and heart and _spirit_ were still the person I loved. Right up until,” he choked.

Neville reached out and clasped Ianto’s hand.

“What do you mean, metal?” Harry asked, hating himself but needing to cover for Ianto’s slip.

“Doesn’t matter,” Ianto muttered, letting go of Neville’s hand.

“I’m sorry, I’s just trying to understand,” Ron looked sad and concerned.

“’s all right,” Ianto said, scrubbing his hands over his face again. He stood and went to the kitchen, grabbing bottles of water for everyone. He went back to the living room and handed them out. He drank his down in one go, then sank back onto the sofa.

“I miss her,” the confession was spoken so softly that they almost missed it. “I don’t know how anyone could expect me to just fall into Jack’s bed, when I can barely even breathe.” He sighed. “I suppose that’s how some people handle their grief,” he thought of Owen. “But I’m not… I wouldn’t even _know_ how to use someone, in that way.”

“You wouldn’t know how to just be with someone that you’re attracted to?” Neville asked, frowning.

“That’s what I’m trying to say,” Ianto said. “It’s like I’m backwards, or something. For you, it’s probably attraction, then attachment.”

“Yeah,” George said, taking the bottle from Ron as the others nodded.

“And that’s fine. Makes sense. But for me, I don’t really get attracted to the point I can’t resist it until I’ve become attached. Then, of course,” he grinned, “all bets are off.”

He reached for the bottle of whisky, again. After a long drink, he said, “So you see, Jack is safe. Mostly because what’s left of my heart is still full of Lisa. But even if that wasn’t the case, why would he want the likes of me? He doesn’t want…” he waved a hand, searching for the word, “entanglements.”

“Wow. So no casual sex, then?” George looked baffled.

Ianto shrugged. “I tried, after Astrid. Just couldn’t be arsed.”

“Astrid!” George exclaimed, grinning again.

“That witch was mad as a box of frogs,” Ron declared.

“The one time you brought her to dinner,” Harry frowned at the memory, “Ginny said her ‘girl-talk’ was creepy.”

“All girl-talk is creepy,” Ron nodded sagely.

“Was she really into pain, Nif?” Harry asked.

Ianto groaned. He had hoped never to have to speak of this. “She was the only person I’d ever met who was angrier than me,” he shrugged.

“And you know what school she came from,” Neville shuddered. Durmstrang had not left a favorable impression on the wizard.

“You always talk about how angry you were, but I never saw that as your defining characteristic,” Harry frowned. “It’s like it’s all _you_ see, but we always saw everything else, almost always.”

Ianto shrugged again. “I guess I spent so much time trying to keep it from ruining things, it always felt like that’s all there was.”

“Yeah, but if you were really _that_ angry, deep down, you wouldn’t have cared whether it ruined anything,” Ron reasoned.

“You’re actually making sense, brother,” George said, handing him the bottle. “Better have another drink.”

Ianto hadn’t considered it, that way. He’d always secretly hoped that Luna was right, that anger wasn’t all there was to him, but now that it was back he was feeling insecure about it. It saddened him to realize that the lack of anger was one more thing he’d lost, when Lisa died.

“We were talking about Astrid,” George brought them back to the topic at hand. 

Ianto wanted to jinx him.

“She told Ginny she was going to break up with you, because you wouldn’t give her what she wanted.”

“So much for privacy and discretion,” Ianto snarked.

“C’mon. She’s in America. She’ll never know that you spilled.”

Ianto grumbled. “All right, yeah. She wanted me to do things that I had no interest in doing. She got me high on…” he stopped himself. “Well. She got me high – snuck it into my drink.”

“Not cool,” Ron protested.

“Then she tied me up and gave me a safe word.” He leaned back, looking thoughtful. “And it’s not that I wouldn’t have enjoyed some of what she did, in a different context, but she was getting off on my genuine discomfort. And then she ignored me when I used the safe word.”

“She went that far?” Harry looked angry. What good were the rules, if they were going to be disregarded?

Ianto shrugged again. “’m not into bloodplay. She cut me, and I used the word, and she didn’t stop until she was… well,” he waved a hand vaguely, “done.”

“That’s appalling! What did you do?” Neville asked.

“Kicked her arse out,” Ianto huffed. “She violated my trust with the drugs, after I’d already told her I wasn’t interested. The rest was just insult to injury.”

“Good on ya, mate,” George nodded, handing Ianto the bottle again.

“She left in a strop within the week,” Ianto said. “Never did seem to understand that she’d done anything wrong.”

“Whatever,” Ron groused. “I’m glad you didn’t put up with that nonsense.”

“Good riddance,” George agreed.

“I knew I didn’t like her,” Neville said, and the others laughed. “What? It’s outrageous! And she’s lucky Nif didn’t press charges.”

Ianto shuddered at the thought of his private doings being paraded about so publicly. He wasn’t entirely comfortable with having told them this bit.

Harry shook his head, sorry they’d pushed.

***

Back at the hub, Jack was fuming. He was safe, was he? He didn’t stop to look too closely at what it was that had him so annoyed. All he knew was that Ianto had no interest in anything casual.

Not that he was considering approaching the younger man any time soon. Even he could tell that Ianto was still just treading water. But at some point, he’d be ready. And whether he wanted to admit it to his friends or not, he _was_ attracted to Jack. The sparks that flew between them that night they caught Myfanwy was proof enough of that.

Why the hell else would the damned emo punk brat have run away?

Jack took a deep breath and decided that it was better this way. The Doctor would come and take him away from this gods-forsaken planet and fix whatever was the matter with him, and it wouldn’t matter that one scrawny Welshman had turned him down before he even made an offer. 

He knew he was being unfair, but the fact that Ianto wasn’t afraid of the idea of being attracted to a man had got his hopes up, only for them to come crashing back to earth again. 

But he knew it was for the best.

It was.

Really.

***

**Author's Note:**

> Jack is in full denial. His rant made me laugh.
> 
> Next up is the wedding, then Christmas. :)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
